Robot Rampage Review: I Will Smack You

Oh geez… what if robots actually ruled the world? What if they got so powerful and had thoughts of their own that they went against their own maker? What if…?

I’m sure atleast some of you have seen the movie I, Robot featuring Will Smith, and the movie was all about robots taking over the world and the main character trying to stop them. While Robot Rampage isn’t as elaborate as a movie plot, casual gamers will find themselves at home with such a unique title.

Hardcore gamers, on the other hand, may find themselves a bit disappointed. For me, I liked the title, but it wasn’t enough for me to love it. Great visuals, OpenFeint integration, and great explosions… but the repetitiveness really starts to get to you.

Likes

Visuals: Visuals have been very well done, along with some good-looking building explosions. The robot was probably my favorite part of the whole visual scene, and Origin8 has proven themselves to be one of the top indie devs on the App Store in terms of visuals.

Scoring System: The scoring system is very unique and isn’t depended on a numerical score; it’s more depended on the number of blocks you’ve destroyed. Uniqueness needs to be credited, and this is a part that I found to be quite clever. I always look for uniqueness/cleverness in games, and Origin8 subtly injected creativity into their high score system.

Dislikes

Controls: There’s just so many parts and things to touch in such a small area, it becomes too difficult. Touching the right and left to move, the arms to throw punch, and legs to stomp. And that’s not even part of it, sometimes the arms punch in the wrong direction, adding much to the frustration levels. While the controls are usable, they definitely are in need of some improvment.

One idea could be using arrows on the bottom, such as the ones found in Zombieville along with action buttons on the right. It’s a very bland idea, but there needs to be some sort of improvement in controls. And no, do not include the accelerometer into the mix.

Repetitive: Basically the same thing over and over: kill armies, buildings, and tanks along with the occasional helicopter. For me, I didn’t exactly have that push to play the game over and over again and recognized the repetitiveness right off the bat. Maybe the increase of game modes could help, but for now, the game is very shallow.

Robot Rampage looks good, sounds good, but plays mediocre. Shallow gameplay along with somewhat faulty controls were a total turn-off for me, and while I’ve played the game for more than an hour, I just can’t find myself playing this game more than I already have. At $1.99, I think your money would be better spent elsewhere until an update arrives to address some of the issues I have mentioned.

About Daniel

I have been an iPhone game addict ever since the NES emulator came out on the 1.1.4 iPhone 2G. After 2.0 and the App Store came out, my iPhone homescreen has never been the same. Other than writing reviews for App Store games, I play soccer/football, American football, volleyball, and golf. I love going to the beach and fishing on the pier. Some games not available on iPhone/iPod Touch that I truly love are the Call of Duty series, Guitar Hero III, Madden NFL 09, and PGR: Gotham Racing.
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One thought on “Robot Rampage Review: I Will Smack You”

Eh. Personally I found the game great for mindless entertainment, and I think that’s what it aims for. I would definitely want better controls – those make or break it for me with a game and I agree with the score you’ve given.